


Explorations in Stress Management

by ainm



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M, Other: See Story Notes, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 09:11:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/796470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainm/pseuds/ainm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a rough week, Jim discovers what Blair needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Explorations in Stress Management

## Explorations in Stress Management

by ainm

Author's website:  <http://www.geocities.com/ainm66>

This is a work of fiction. Characters belong to Pet Fly, etc. - no copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made.

Intended as a PWP because I was a little disgruntled about "Protection from Pornography Week," though it got just a bit cerebral.

Short-haired detective Blair, & non-disciplinary spanking. :-)

* * *

Theoretically they were relaxing in front of the Jags game on the tube, but the tension pouring off Blair belied the "relaxing" part. 

"Try not to think about it, Chief." 

"About what?" 

"Whatever it is you're thinking about." Jim turned away from the TV to face Blair, sitting alongside him on the sofa. "I know it's been a hell of a week for you..." 

Blair offered a wry smile, his face quickly tightening back into the bleak expression he'd been wearing for days. "A real Murphy's Law extravaganza -- let's try to exercise every novel way that can be devised to torture one Detective Blair Sandburg, with extra points awarded for schemes that ruin or end the lives of innocent civilians along the way." 

"It's been a bitch, I know. And I wish I could tell you it's over, but you've got to be back in court on Monday... But that just makes it that much more important that you try to settle down a bit now. We've got the weekend off, you need to try to relax, hmm?" 

Blair just sighed. 

"I just can't seem to shake it all off this time, you know? I can't meditate, can't relax enough to clear my mind or clear my mind enough to relax, I've had so much tea that I'm taking a leak every half an hour, I almost broke my hand trying to take it out on the heavy bag at the gym, and I haven't slept more than two hours at a stretch in so long that I'm too tired to remember just _how_ long." 

Blair's right foot had begun a rather spasmodic tapping as he spoke, and as if it were a timer, the tapping suddenly stopped and Blair popped up from the couch. He looked around wildly for a moment, as if there were somewhere to go or something to do, then sat back down heavily. He leaned back against the cushions briefly, then straightened again to sit rigidly at the edge. 

"I can't _handle_ this, man," he said somewhat desperately to his partner, who was looking at him with concern touched with just the tiniest bit of amusement. He felt terrible for Blair, but he couldn't help thinking that even the depths of despair didn't slow his motor any. 

"You can, Sandburg, even if you can't believe that right now. You're the toughest person I know." Jim reached out and stroked Blair's arm. He wanted to make things better, but he wasn't sure what he could do, except... 

"Maybe I can help you relax?" he asked suggestively, moving up the arm to caress the skin exposed above Blair's shirt collar. 

Rather than leaning into the usually-welcome touch, Blair twitched and grabbed Jim's hand in both of his, pulling it away from his neck and holding it out between them. 

"I'm so sorry, man, I'm just _so_ jumpy right now..." 

He placed Jim's hand on Jim's thigh and gave it a little pat, then got up off the sofa and walked to the glass door. He stood silently looking out into the night. 

After giving him a moment alone, Jim followed. His first strategy having failed, he tried a different approach. "Come on, Sandburg, try to lighten up a bit, will ya?" he said in a teasing voice, punctuating it with a light swat on the ass. 

Both men went still at the moan it drew from Blair. 

"Uh... Chief?" 

Neither man moved for a moment, then Jim slid up behind Blair and began rubbing soft circles over his ass through his khakis. Almost immediately Blair thrust backward, then took up a rhythmic and insistent pushing into Jim's hand. 

Blair couldn't see the thoughtful expression that passed over his Sentinel's face before his hand lifted from its circling and came back down in a much firmer smack. 

Blair's back arched and a shudder rippled through him. 

Jim gripped Blair's shoulders and used his hold to turn Blair to face him. 

"I thought this wasn't a kink for you, Chief," he said softly to the down-turned face. When he got no response, he put a finger under Blair's chin and with a gentle pressure forced the younger man to meet his gaze. 

"It isn't... it wasn't. You know that normally I'm into sharing, not submission," Blair said. "No matter what people assumed the hair to imply to the contrary," he added with a little laugh. Jim laughed with him, and the mood seemed just a tiny bit lighter. 

"I don't get it, man, other than I'm not feeling like myself tonight," Blair said with obvious confusion and more than a little embarrassment. 

"It's not really that strange, Sandburg, as I'm sure you'd be the first to tell me if you _were_ feeling like yourself. It's a well-documented fact that people who lead high-stress lives and face tough decisions all day often take pleasure in relinquishing that control through submissive sex play." Jim felt just a little smug, enjoying the infrequent pleasure of being the one spouting the psychological theories. 

"So, Dr Ellison, are you saying that this, ah, unexpected reaction is in fact a perfectly normal response to my week from hell?" Blair asked with a small but definite smile. 

"It certainly seems like a reasonable hypothesis." With an exaggerated leer, Jim asked, "Do you want to test it out?" 

Blair closed his eyes for a moment, and Jim watched a shiver run through him. Opening his eyes, Blair just nodded as a light blush stained his cheeks. 

* * *

Blair didn't speak as Jim led him up the stairs, one wrist held firmly but not tightly in Jim's strong hand. 

He didn't move when Jim stopped next to their bed, just looked at the floor while Jim shed his own clothing quickly. 

Looking at Blair's still, and still-clothed, form, Jim asked softly, "Are you sure you want this, Chief?" 

At first Blair just looked up at him, but the question remained on Jim's face as he waited for more explicit confirmation. 

"Please," Blair whispered finally, then looked away again. 

"Then take off your clothes, Blair." 

Blair hurried to comply, the quick but sure movements showing his partner that the accelerated heartbeat and respiration were not due to fear. 

Clothes off, Blair stood naked and unmoving in front of Jim. 

"What do you want, Blair?" 

Blair exhaled sharply, but didn't speak; Jim could see the tension return to his partner's body. 

"OK, OK, I'm sorry, I just..." Jim trailed off, still not entirely sure how he was supposed to be playing this, and started stroking Blair's close-cropped curls. Blair pushed cat-like into the caress. 

Closing his eyes, Blair began to whisper. 

"I... I'm sorry -- but I need you to know what to do. I'm so tired of thinking, of talking, of trying to make things work out right this week... I need you to take care of things tonight -- can you do that for me? It's not really fair, not really sharing, but... I need that right now. Can you do that?" 

Blair opened his eyes, and the pain and pleading in them made Jim's throat clench. He wrapped his arms around the smaller man and pressed his cheek to the top of his head, letting the soft curls tickle his nose while he breathed in his lover's scent. 

"Whatever you need, Blair, I can do it. I'll take care of you, don't worry about a thing. Don't _think_ about a thing, and I'll make you feel _so_ good, babe, you'll sleep through the weekend to recover," he promised. 

"No thinking," Blair whispered fervently. "Just make me feel -- I need to _feel_ , Jim..." 

And Jim heard the note of desperation again, and thought he understood. 

* * *

Taking a step backward, Jim took a good look at his mate. 

"Just stand there, Blair... I want to see you," he said. "You are so beautiful, you know that? I know you probably don't feel that way right now, but it's true." 

He begun a slow circle around Blair, focusing his senses on him, drinking in the smallest details of him with his sight, sampling his fragrance with small sniffs, listening to the very blood thrumming in his veins. 

He watched as Blair's nipples pebbled under his inspection, watched the thick chest hair adjust itself to the slight change in topography. He listened as the sounds of Blair's respiration became softer and wetter as he shifted to breathing through his mouth. He breathed deeply of the pheromones Blair was exuding. 

Jim saw that despite the signs of his increasing arousal, Blair was still tense and rigid -- and not just his cock, which was not yet fully erect but was well on its way. 

Completing the circle and returning to the front of his guide, Jim added his sense of touch to the proceedings, running his fingertips lightly over Blair's chest. Blair made a small grunting noise and twitched away from Jim's fingers once more. Jim reached out again, but rather than a light touch, he pressed firmly and drew his hand across the furred chest, and was rewarded with a long sigh from his partner. 

Encouraged, Jim continued his exploration of Blair's body, taking care to keep a firm pressure and not to tease or tickle. It was a very simple massage, and as he moved down Blair's arms and back, he could feel some degree of tension lessening in his wake, as if his touch were pushing the stress out. 

Done making a tactile re-acquaintance with the upper half of Blair's body, Jim brought his fifth sense to bear, sucking hard on the skin covering his partner's collarbone. As the salty musk of Blair's skin filled Jim's mouth, his ears feasted on the moans Blair started making as soon as Jim started the suction. He knew he was leaving a mark, but from the sounds Jim figured it was worth it. 

Finally releasing his hold on that bit of flesh, he caught Blair's lips with his own and pushed his tongue inside to make a thorough investigation of every bit of Blair's mouth, sliding solidly across gums and teeth and tongue as Blair accepted the attention with relative passivity. Jim caught Blair's tongue and sucked it briefly, then released his mouth altogether. 

Blair sighed brokenly when Jim ended the kiss, but Jim was moving south to the nipples that were obviously waiting for him. Resisting the impulse to lick at them, he instead latched firmly onto one and sucked strongly, and reveled in the groan Blair gave in response. Then without warning he released that nipple, took the nipple ring on the other into his mouth, and gave a quick, sharp tug. Blair let out a short scream and his knees buckled. 

Jim caught Blair and maneuvered him to the bed. "Hands and knees, Sandburg," he said huskily. Blair just groaned as he scrambled up the bed and presented his ass to his lover. 

Sitting back on his heels at the end of the bed, Jim watched slight shivers run through Blair's back as he waited with decreasing patience for Jim to touch him. The fact that Jim had so far kept this attentions above the waist seemed to be taking a toll. 

"You look so delicious like that, Chief... good enough to eat, as they say." And he bit down on the curve of Blair's ass cheek, sending Blair lurching forward with the shock, then surging back for more. 

With the same firm pressure that he'd been using on Blair's upper body, Jim began to fondle the roundness of Blair's ass. As he had earlier, Blair began thrusting backward, obviously seeking something other than what Jim was providing. Jim smiled as he watched his partner's movements and decided it was time. 

Jim ran his hands swiftly down Blair's thighs, carefully avoiding the ticklish spot near his knee, then reached around to take hold of Blair's cock. Just a few strokes on the rock-hard and dripping member had Blair moaning non-stop -- and that was when Jim's other hand landed a firm spank on his partner's waiting ass. 

Blair's scream and the pulse of pre-come Jim could feel on his hand had him tugging hard on Blair's balls to ensure that Blair didn't come just yet. Blair groaned and dropped his forehead to the pillow. With one final stroke to Blair's cock, Jim turned his full attention to Blair's ass. 

Looking at the faint red handprint on Blair's dusky ass, Jim realized that while he hadn't thought that this was a kink of his either, the experience was not going to be something he was simply doing for Blair. _Smack_. He didn't want to _hurt_ Blair, never that, but this was what Blair wanted, it was obvious. _Smack_. He was _already_ hurting, and from the relieved-sounding groans that accompanied each slap of his ass, this wasn't causing more hurt, it was actually helping. _Smack_. 

The ass cheeks were more uniformly red now, and Jim laid his hand on to feel the heat coming from the surface. This time _he_ was the one groaning, and he felt his own cock twitch with the thrill of it. _Smack_. 

Blair was making a steady thrum in the back of his throat, a sound of contentment that made Jim feel very happy himself. _Smack_. And the sight of Blair's ass was making him very happy as well -- Jim knew he could be a territorial bastard, and Blair was _his_. He loved to mark his partner... but there weren't many ways he could do so that weren't unacceptably obvious. _Smack_. 

Simon and their friends in Major Crimes knew they were a couple, but it was not something that they shared outside that close circle -- keeping their partnership intact was more important than public displays of the depth of that partnership. _Smack_. But god -- while this wasn't a form of marking that had occurred to Jim before, he was finding it astonishingly hot now that it had. 

But he didn't want to inadvertently damage his lover -- he wasn't sure that Blair was able to tell how much was too much right now, so it had to be up to him. And it looked to him that Blair was about done, at least for the time being. 

He finished with three final swats without a pause between, then leaned down and ran his tongue across the hot flesh of Blair's ass. The sensation was incredible, the heat from the blood raised from the spanking scorching him -- and from the writhing Blair was doing, it was clear that the relative cool of Jim's tongue was making him crazy as well. 

After covering every square inch of Blair's backside with his mouth, Jim leaned over and grabbed supplies from the nightstand. He saw that Blair had his eyes tightly closed, his forehead still resting on the bed. At the sound of the nightstand drawer closing, a shiver went through Blair's body, and Jim smiled again. 

Settling back down behind Blair, Jim drew his finger down the crack of his ass. He could tell that his own breathing had sped up in anticipation, and suddenly he realized that he couldn't stretch this out any longer. 

Opening the lube, Jim landed a quick and unexpected slap to Blair's ass before lubing his fingers. Immediately Blair began pushing his ass back at Jim again, who had to bite back a laugh at how predictable his mate was becoming tonight. Blair was making frustrated sounds, and Jim didn't want him to get upset again, so he gave a few more light swats with his non-lubed fingers. 

Then he ran a slick fingertip over Blair's hole, and watched his partner visibly deflate as all the air in his lungs was exhaled slowly. Jim smiled once more. 

Using one hand to hold Blair open, Jim began probing with first one finger, then two. Blair was keening now in response, a totally mindless sound that went straight to Jim's cock. Blair was pushing back insistently, fucking himself on Jim's fingers, and Jim added a third. 

Jim loved to watch himself slide into Blair this way, loved the intense intimacy of it. When he was fucking Blair, he couldn't really think well enough to appreciate the sight of it, but the visual aspect was an added bonus to the feeling of Blair's hot channel clenching his fingers. 

He crooked his fingers and brushed Blair's prostate, and Blair wailed. Realizing he'd unintentionally been neglecting Blair's cock, he reached forward and ran a hand along its hard length and found it slick with pre-come. He slid his fingers through the moisture, redistributing it evenly across the soft skin covering the steel that was Blair's erection, then moved down to cup the sac in his hand. He could tell that the attention had Blair at the brink again, and he delivered an almost-brutal squeeze to his balls. 

"Don't come yet -- I want you to wait for me," he told his partner , and took Blair's shaky "mmm" as consent. 

Slowly Jim withdrew his fingers, despite Blair's attempt to follow them. "Hold on, Chief, I'm almost there." 

Quickly he opened a packet, slid the condom over his erection, and coated it with lube. Looking down at Blair's ass, it was all he could do not to thrust straight in to the hilt, but he needed to make sure he was doing this _right_ , doing what Blair needed, and not hurting his mate in the process. 

_Smack_. He spread a little more lube over Blair's opening. _Smack_. Blair's reactions made it so difficult to retain his control that he had to dial down his hearing to take the edge off those sexy moans and wordless pleas. It filled him with a mixture of pride and lust to know that he had reduced his partner to such a mindless state, one that he had desperately needed and deserved to attain. _Smack_. "I'm gonna fuck you now, Blair, gonna take this ass and make it mine." It wasn't easy or usual for Jim to say such things, but it seemed right for the situation at hand, and he wanted so much to give Blair what he needed. 

"Yesss..." his partner hissed in encouragement as Jim lined up and pushed the head of his cock slowly past the ring of muscle. 

But Blair was having none of slowly, and thrust back forcefully to take Jim in as far as he could get him. 

"Easy, Chief," Jim murmured, gripping Blair by the hips to control his movements. "We're doing this my way." Still, the idea wasn't to torture his guide, so he let himself slide the rest of the way in. They groaned together when Jim's balls met Blair's ass. 

Not wanting to tease, but not wanting to lose control too quickly, Jim set a slow but forceful pace, pulling almost all the way out before plunging back deeply into Blair's tight heat. Again and again he filled Blair completely, angling to brush his prostate and leaving him almost sobbing in pleasure. 

Buried all the way inside his partner, Jim paused. Rocking back and forth just a tiny bit, he reached forward to touch Blair's ass. He stroked it firmly for a moment, then delivered several slaps to the still-red flesh. Part of him was rather appalled at was he was doing, but the intensely pleasured sounds Blair gave him told him he wasn't doing wrong. He touched the skin that surrounded his cock, felt their point of connection. 

"Do you feel that, Blair?" Jim panted. "Feel that, feel me, feel me taking you, loving you, I love you Blair..." 

"Yes," Blair gasped. "Feel you... feel me..." 

Jim loved that he had the power to make Blair go monosyllabic. Talking was so integral to who he was, Jim knew that he must be doing this right if Blair couldn't find more words than that to string together, knew he must be helping to take his problems from Blair and Blair from his problems. And it certainly wasn't turning out to be any kind of hardship for him, either. 

Secure in the knowledge that he was handling the situation properly, Jim allowed himself to stop thinking about everything so carefully and let himself get monosyllabic along with his partner. After a few more smacks to fully cover Blair's ass, Jim resumed thrusting. 

Once he let go of his tight control, it didn't take long before Jim was at the edge. He reached around and took hold of Blair's cock and it only took a couple of strokes before Blair too was at the edge, and past it. The feel of Blair pulsing and coming in his hand dragged Jim over that edge with him, and the rippling squeeze of Blair's internal muscles pulled an intense orgasm from him. 

Panting, Jim remained inside Blair for a long moment, running his hand over Blair's back and ass before pulling out carefully. As soon as Jim was gone, Blair sank face down on the bed, completely spent. He had just enough energy to make an "eew" noise and roll onto his side out of the wet spot, but then Jim couldn't see a muscle move -- he barely seemed to be breathing, though Jim could tell he was just taking very slow and shallow breaths. 

With one last satisfied look at his handiwork in the form of one collapsed and come-splattered police detective, Jim went to get a washcloth to clean them up. 

* * *

Even though the answer seemed pretty obvious, looking at the mostly-asleep and boneless-looking man sprawled and unmoving next to him, Jim couldn't help but ask. 

"Was that what you wanted, Blair?" 

A soft and sleepy laugh came from his partner, who didn't open his eyes. "Perfect," he mumbled. "No talking now... sleeping... free now... thanks. Bed, Jim." 

Laughing, Jim leaned over and kissed the top of Blair's head. "Yes, Chief, bed now. Sleep well, sleep long. I love you." He turned off the light and spooned up behind his already-sleeping lover. 

* * *

End Explorations in Stress Management by ainm: ainm@livejournal.com

Author and story notes above.

  
Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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